


Haunted House

by AllTheNamesIWantedWereUsed



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Accidents, Alex is thirsty af, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Haunted Houses, Prompt Fill, Strand is pretty thirsty too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheNamesIWantedWereUsed/pseuds/AllTheNamesIWantedWereUsed
Summary: This isn't the worst thing that could've happened at a supposedly haunted house, but it's definitely one of the most embarassing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an example of me using one of what I believe to be the dumbest fic tropes ever, and only slightly regretting it.
> 
> A friend gave me this prompt, (because I take prompts, hint hint) and so I gladly filled it: "I may have mildly panicked."

For the record, Alex did not want to do this. The absolute last thing she wants to do is traipse through an old, creepy, possibly haunted house. The floorboards creak and bend under her feet, and she feels like any moment they’re going to give way and she’s going to fall and break her neck. 

 

But hey, at least she’s not alone.

 

She clings to her recorder in one hand, and a flashlight in the other. Strand is next to her, moving with the stealth of a shadow. She tries not to think about how much he looks like a shadow, tall, quiet, and cast in darkness, and attempts to mimic his movements, though Strand seems to have a somewhat expert experience with old, creepy, possibly haunted houses, judging by the lightness in his step and the way he tests floorboards before gliding over them with an odd ease. 

 

“Do you do this often?” she asks him, trying to follow where he’s stepping. After all, if the boards can hold him, they can hold her. “Like, do you go all ninja-style inside old abandoned houses frequently?” She catches the ghost of his smile, illuminated by the soft glow of her flashlight. 

 

“You’d be surprised how many people claim that they’ve been in a real haunted house,” he answers. “It’s really just a matter of how the media portrays old houses like this, not to mention how with all the shadows, the older architecture, even the occasional rat can trigger unease in people who have been conditioned to see this as frightening. There’s also the standard occurrence of-”

 

“Apophenia?” she guesses. 

 

He gives a small laugh, ducking to avoid hitting a low door frame. “I don’t say that nearly as often as your listeners think I do.” 

 

“But?” 

 

“But...yes, apophenia.”

 

She laughs now, but since she’s distracted, she’s no longer following Strand’s steps, and steps on a less sound floorboard, and her foot goes through it. She drops with a cracking of wood and a shriek, her recorder and flashlight falling with her.

 

Something else clatters to the floor, and before she can say or do anything, she’s stopped falling, her body tilted backwards. A flashlight rolls past her, and light beams fly over the room.

Strand, with incredibly fast reflexes, has caught her. His arms are wrapped around her waist, and her fingers are instinctively digging into his upper arms with an unnecessary force. 

 

Her foot has disappeared through the floor, and her leg is caught in the broken wood up to her knee. The wood has ripped her jeans, and, judging by the pain in her leg, it’s scraped her as well.  Her other leg is splayed out behind her like she’s frozen in some kind of ridiculous dance move.

 

Heart hammering, she sucks in a breath, and uses it to mutter a choice expletive. Strand huffs a laugh and the close proximity of the sound alerts her to just how close together they now are.

 

It’s dark, but even without a flashlight, she can tell that she and Strand are a position that Nic would laugh at without hesitation, but not before snapping a few pictures.

 

“Are you alright?” Strand asks, and she tries not to think about how their lips are only a few inches apart. 

 

“I-yeah,” she breathes. “Although I think this house is trying to claim me as its next victim.”

 

This elicits another quiet laugh from him.  “Can you stand?”

 

“I’ll try.” She attempts to regain mobility of her one free leg, but it skids out from under her and she squeaks as she falls again. Strand’s grip on her tightens. Did he always wear this type of cologne?

 

She realizes her recorder is still merrily taping this entire clusterfuck. “Damn it,” she sighs.

 

“This is problematic, I’ll agree,” Strand says.

 

“No, my recorder is still going...But yeah, this is bad too.”

 

“You can’t stand. Can you sit?”he asks.

 

“I could try, but I’d snap my leg in half,” she replies. He cranes his neck to examine her said dilemma. 

 

“Hang on,” he says. One of his arms leaves, and she tenses, terrified to drop. Her nails dig deeper into Strand’s biceps, and she’s not sure whether to mourn her manicure or his shirt.

 

“I’ve got you, Alex. I won’t drop you,” he says softly. 

 

The listeners are going to have a fucking field day with this.

 

“R-right,” she answers, glad he can’t see the blush that’s undoubtedly coloring her heated cheeks.

 

His hand gently cups the back of her thigh, guiding her leg to a more efficient position, and he sets her down on the wood floor where she can finally sit. She wants to slap herself for the brief flash of disappointment she feels when he lets go of her.  _ Get it together _ , she snaps silently at herself.

 

“I knew this would happen,” he mutters, diverting his attention away from the now solved problem and to Alex’s leg, caught in the floorboards.

 

“What, you calculated my clumsiness?” she says, trying to joke away her embarrassment.

 

“No,” he replies, not seeing the joke, “I merely knew this was an old house and something like this was bound to happen, and-ah, you were joking.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Strand reaches for one of the fallen flashlights and shines it onto Alex’s predicament. Her jeans are shredded up to the knee, and blood wells up in several scratches. “You didn’t mention that you were hurt,” he says, glancing up at her.

 

“I was distracted, I guess.” She winces at the unintentional double entendre. “I mean-”

 

Strand saves her himself. “Adrenaline usually distracts one from pain and fatigue, momentarily. That’s understandable, now that I think about it.” He pushes his glasses back up his nose. She notices that a lock of hair has fallen out of place, just barely touching the top of his glasses and resists the urge to brush it back. 

 

Strand folds a hand over the splintered wood to shield her injuries, his knuckles brushing against her knee. Her leg jerks, and he instantly freezes, looking up at her with concern. 

 

“Did I-”

 

“No! I mean, no, I’m fine.” She’s really glad the flashlight is focused on her leg and not her face. She tries to laugh it off. “I guess you could say it was just a  _ knee-jerk reaction _ .”

 

He pauses at her pun, and bows his head as if mourning her humor-bereft jokes, but when he lifts his head, he’s grinning. 

 

“How the hell did you catch me?” she asks before she can stop herself. “Do you have insane reflexes or something?”

 

He’s silent for a few moments. “I may have...mildly panicked,” he replies slowly, ducking his head.

 

“Mildly panicked?” she echoes.

 

“I was on edge, expecting something like this to happen. I heard the wood crack, and I suppose the dam burst, so to speak.”

 

“Yeah, must’ve.”

 

Strand grants her another wry smile before tugging at the piece of wood, wrenching it up and away, giving Alex more space to lift out her leg with minor injury. Her leg slides out with no problem.

 

Breathing a sigh of relief, she scrambles for her recorder and flashlight, thankfully still in reach. Strand rises, and steps towards her, offering a hand. She takes it, and he pulls her to her feet. She stumbles a bit, wincing at her scratches, and he’s there to steady her. 

 

“Perhaps we should come back another day?” he suggests. 

 

“Probably smart,” Alex says, nodding in agreement. She fishes for her phone, meaning to call Nic. 

 

Dialing for Nic, she looks up at Strand. “Thanks, by the way,” she says, smiling.

 

He presents her with another small smile, setting a record for the most times she’s seen him smile in one day. “My pleasure, Alex.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because you all asked so nicely, here's Strand's POV, though I'm not as pleased with it as the last chapter, but oh well

“Please?”

 

“No.”

 

“Please?”

 

“No.”

 

“Come on! Please?”

 

Richard sighs. Of all the scenarios he’s imagined where Alex is on her knees, this definitely isn’t one of them. 

 

“Why, Alex?” he asks. “Why me? Why not Nic?”

 

She huffs, blowing her bangs up in the air. “Nic is doing work for stupid  _ TANIS _ , and no one else will do it with me.” 

 

“Why not just go alone?” 

 

“Because that house is super old and three stories tall, and with my accident-prone luck, I’ll probably fall and accidentally kill myself on the stairs.” 

 

He certainly isn’t a fan of the mental image that statement evokes.

 

He leans back in his chair, surveying the scene in front of him. Alex stares at him with pleading puppy-dog eyes, her ever-present recorder clasped inbetween her hands. 

 

“Let me see if I’m getting this right,” he says. “You want me to go with you to a supposedly haunted house for a podcast bonus episode?”

 

“Yeah,” she says sheepishly. “Besides, the podcast is about you. You’d be a great asset to this segment. Everyone wants to hear from you.”

 

He goes silent, holding her in suspense while he thinks. It’d be an opportunity to spend more time with her, but then again, perhaps that isn’t the best reason to go with her. He’s tried so hard to keep this all under control, carefully cultivated an air of indifference(or so he thinks), and he’s concerned that the more time he’s in close quarters with Alex Reagan, the more difficult it becomes.

 

“You’re not going to give up, are you?”

 

Her pout wavers slightly as she tries not to smile. “When have I ever given up?” 

 

He sighs again. Her determination and obduracy rivals his own. “Alex-”

 

“Did I mention it’d be another opportunity to demonstrate your steadfast skepticism?” she adds slyly. 

 

He closes his eyes briefly. She’s still there when he opens them. “Fine,” he says reluctantly.

 

He’s doing this to maintain his platform. That’s the only reason he’s doing this.

 

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

 

He may not know it, but he has a stunning penchant for denial.

* * *

 

Alex isn’t wrong about the antiquity of the house. The entire house seems to sway if so much as a breeze floats by, and the wood’s usefulness has probably expired a long time ago. He’s on edge, waiting for something disastrous to happen. 

 

He carefully allows himself to get lost in Alex’s banter as he cautiously navigates the rotting floorboards. The fact that they’re on the second floor does nothing to calm his nerves.

 

Alex appears to get too lost in the conversation, or so it seems when there’s a loud crack and she screams. He spins around just in time to see her plummet.

 

And so the other shoe drops, quite literally. 

 

Instinct, panic, adrenaline, whatever it may be, that is what makes him dart forward and catch her.

 

In the blink of an eye, his arms are the only thing keeping her upright...somewhat. They’re now stuck with Alex’s body contorted in some sort of a dip, almost reminiscent of a tango from one of Ruby’s old movies that his young assistant made him watch. 

 

He’s pretty sure her nails burrowing into his upper arms isn’t part of the dance, though. 

 

“Are you alright?” he questions her, and in turn receives a shaky response. 

 

She tries to stand, but only succeeds in nearly introducing her body to the floor once again, and he’s forced to reinforce his hold on her. 

 

Her free leg seems to be the real problem, and if his hand goes higher than necessary while redirecting its position, well, that’s merely an accident.

 

He chalks up her hitched and uneven breathing throughout the conundrum to the adrenaline, tries not to consider any alternative answers. He can’t handle another possibility at the moment.

 

Her listeners, already swarming to any vague statement, will undoubtedly have a conniption about this incident. He suspects Alex will try to play it down as much as she can, but that’s never stopped anyone before.

 

When he finally manages to get her into a stable position where he can focus on her trapped leg, he’s unsure if he’s relieved or irritated at the loss of contact and proximity. 

 

Grabbing a flashlight to examine the new problem, its beam briefly passes over her expression, and he pretends he doesn’t see the blush coloring her face, pretends that he doesn’t note how much prettier it makes her look, pretends that he’s not considering the reason as to why  she would be blushing in the first place-

 

He mentally curses himself and brings himself back to the problem at hand. A slight twinge of alarm goes through him when he sees blood beading up on the long scratches he sees through the fabric remnants of her pant leg. 

 

Alex tries to laugh off the whole situation, and Richard hopes she just keeps telling bad puns and jokes, until-

 

“How the hell did you catch me?” He tells himself he’s only imagining the wonderment in her tone.

 

He’s not sure how to respond. He can’t tell her that he’d practically been monitoring her the whole time, waiting for a catastrophe to occur. He really wishes she hadn’t told him that she was accident-prone; it’ll only make him more anxious around her.

 

“I may have...mildly panicked.” Well. That would definitely warrant her to ask for an explanation. 

 

He brushes her off with a watered down version of the truth, and helps her extract her leg. She definitely needs medical attention, or at least a first aid kit, he notes as he helps her to her feet. He suggests they leave, and she relents, pulling out her phone to call Nic and tell him they were heading back. 

 

In the middle of pressing numbers, she stops and looks up at him, smiling. “Thanks, by the way.” 

 

Disarmed, he can only smile back with a three word reply: “My pleasure, Alex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment/kudos, please!

**Author's Note:**

> Comment/kudos please!


End file.
